


Doesn't Hurt That Much

by CallMeBombshell



Category: Battlestar Galactica
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-15
Updated: 2009-09-15
Packaged: 2017-10-15 17:48:05
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,259
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/163305
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/CallMeBombshell/pseuds/CallMeBombshell
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Looking back on it later, Felix thinks maybe he should have known.</i> Felix learns the hard way exactly how risky it is to drink at the card table with Starbuck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Doesn't Hurt That Much

**Author's Note:**

> This is for [](http://latenightcuppa.livejournal.com/profile)[**latenightcuppa**](http://latenightcuppa.livejournal.com/) who assured me that this wasn't totally stupid, and because she's a Gaeta fan :D

Felix Gaeta has been posted on the Galactica for nearly a year, and he loves his job, thank you very much. Sure, maybe not everyone thinks it's fun to spend all day in CIC, standing watch as the OOD when the Commander and the XO are off-duty, prepping reports and notices, and keeping an eye on the DRADIS, just in case. But, dammit, it's _his_ job, and he's trained for years to serve like this. Since he was fifteen, Felix had dreamed of being an officer aboard a battlestar. He didn't much care where he served; he'd learned a lot in Officer Candidate School and was certain he could've filled any one of a dozen positions. It wasn't the specific job that made him happy, it was just knowing that he was doing his duty an an officer.

Felix just wished that OCS had offered a course in how to deal with fellow officers who probably shouldn't have even _become_ officers except that they were so damned good at their jobs that it would have been a crime not to promote them.

Felix meets Kara Thrace at the triad table in the rec room her first night on Galactica. She's loud, laughing and drinking and swearing like the Viper jock she is, and Felix wonders how in the hell this woman could have gotten the Lieutenant's stars pinned on the collar of her jacket. He's just finished his last shift of the day, and he's thinking of saying hello to Dee in the rec room before heading back to his rack to read for a while, but the sight of a new face stops him short.

"Felix!" Dee calls, seeing him hovering near the hatch. "You have to help me, I'm in danger of losing my entire month's pay here!" She waves her hand, indicating the table, piled high with cubits and cigarettes and various other valuables. Two of the three men at the table are still in the game, their companion having apparently folded. The table's fifth occupant looks up, surveying Felix over her mounds of coins, and flashes him a grin.

"Don't worry," she says, and Felix wonders how she can manage to sound so light while smirking so widely. "If you're lucky I'll give you a chance to win it all back."

Looking back on it later, Felix thinks maybe he should have known. Something about the pile of winnings in front of her, dwarfing everyone else's. Or maybe it was in the way the remaining two men wave their hands in the air after the third round, fervently protesting being dealt in again. Or was it the smirk, the cigar, the glass of whiskey at her elbow, all making up a textbook picture of the worst kind of card shark imaginable? Yes, Felix definitely should have seen it coming.

When Felix wakes up in the morning with his head strangely heavy, ears stuffed up with cotton, and a strange pricking pain on the right side of his chest, it takes him a few minutes to put the pieces together. Then he groans, slapping a hand across the eyes he's just opened to the blinding light of the bunkroom. He's reminded, suddenly, of exactly why he gave up drinking in OCS.

He blinks hard, trying to remember exactly how this had happened. Somewhere behind his eyes, a grin flashes, hazel eyes wicked, blonde hair cut short and shaggy, stogie hanging from the corner of a mouth. _Lieutenant Kara Thrace_ , he thinks vaguely, and then is impressed he can remember he full name, let alone her rank. Maybe he'd asked her a few too many times.

Felix sits up in his bunk and makes to stand, groaning again when the room tilts sharply to the left. He manages to get to the head without incident, which is a small mercy in and of itself. He knows he'll feel more human once he's had a good, hot shower and a good, hot cup of coffee (or three), but for now he'd really like to sink into the metal plating on the floor and not get up again.

It isn't until he's halfway through his shower, soap slippery in his hands and his brain starting to work properly again, when he looks down and sees it. Stamped across the right side of his chest, opposite his heart, is a tiger.

Felix Gaeta has never even thought about getting a tattoo. He wonders suddenly exactly how drunk he'd gotten last night. Then he thinks that maybe it's better if he doesn't know. He makes a quick mental note:

Gods forbid he should ever drink with Kara Thrace again.

He manages to evade the troublesome lieutenant for nearly the entire day, carefully checking the pilot schedules and the hangar bay and CIC rosters, double-checking the times when she's most likely to be in the corridors. One meeting (and one unexpected tattoo), and he's already developed a healthy respect for her ability to cause trouble; the Old Man would be proud, he thinks.

But his good luck can't last forever, and he spots her across the mess hall late that evening when he's finishing up his meal. He's been talking with Dee when he sees a flash of blonde hair behind her. He watches Thrace sit down with her back toward him, digging into her food with the sort of gusto which Felix usually associates with Marines and which always gives him a vague sense of impending doom by heartburn. She lowers her head closer toward her plate, and that's when Felix sees it.

There's a patch of slightly reddened skin at the back of her neck. And smack in the middle of it is a crisp, dark blue tattoo.

Felix takes a moment to thank the gods that Kara Thrace went and got herself all marked up, too.

That is, until she turns, gives him a smirk, and saunters over, empty tray in one hand. She stops beside him and Felix wonders if it's too late to run for cover.

"Still alive, I see," she says, and Felix watches her smirk grow even wider. "Good thing, too," she continues. "I was hoping you'd join me for a little game of triad later, lieutenant." She reaches out and taps a finger against his chest. "It's always fun to play against such a... worthy opponent."

Felix can only stare blankly, mouth agape, because damnit, isn't she supposed to be embarrassed? That how it's supposed to work when you get drunk with a stranger and wake up in the morning with a new tattoo and absolutely no memory of having gotten it, but apparently Kara Thrace never got that memo

Thrace grins like she knows exactly what he's thinking and saunters off, leaving Felix feeling just a little depressed with the unfairness of the world. Dee's staring at him, one eyebrow raised.

"So," she says after a moment. "What exactly did she do to you last night?"

Something in the way she says it makes Felix wonder if she's already planning some sort of revenge, but that idea send off warning bells in his head. If Kara Thrace can get him, Felix Gaeta, dry-boy of the Galactica, so spectacularly drunk in a single night that he can't remember what happened, then poor Dee doesn't stand a chance in hell. He considers telling her this, but that could lead to questions and he doesn't particularly want to answer any questions today.

"I have no idea," he tells her instead. "And I don't want to know."  



End file.
